Constraints over Lambda-Structures in Semantic Underspecification

Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Linguistics and 36th Annual Meeting
of the Association for Computational Linguistics
, pp. 353--359, August 1998

We introduce a first-order language for semantic underspecification that we call Constraint Language for
Lambda-Structures (CLLS). A lambda-structure can be
considered as a lambda-term up to consistent renaming
of bound variables (alpha-equality);
a constraint of CLLS is an underspecified description of a
$lambda$-structure. CLLS solves a capturing problem
omnipresent in underspecified scope representations.
CLLS features constraints for dominance,
lambda binding, parallelism, and anaphoric links. Based on
CLLS we present a simple, integrated, and underspecified
treatment of scope, parallelism, and anaphora.